Scribd has spent nearly two decades collecting knowledge from all over the world. Even with the popularity of LLMs, uploads to Scribd are up significantly year over year, and the platform now contains more than half a billion documents.

At a time when AI-generated answers are everywhere, people continue to seek out original materials created by real people: study guides, repair manuals, lesson plans, devotional texts, and more. 

As our corpus expands, we’ve begun several projects aimed at better understanding it. A recent internal project organized over 200 million public documents into 1,000 granular topic clusters – moving beyond broad categories like “Education”  into more specific subsets like “Comprehensive Overview of Biology Education Assessments.” 

This showed us simple patterns on how people use Scribd in their everyday life. People don't come to Scribd to browse. They arrive with a specific thing to finish, find what they need, and get back to it.

Here’s what’s trending this spring. 

Educational content leads the way

Educational materials are consistently among the most-visited material on Scribd, and this spring is no different. Math resources, science materials, and assessment guides are all highly popular. 

One of the platform’s consistently popular topic clusters centers on comprehensive academic support materials, reflecting ongoing demand from students, parents, and educators alike. 

Many of the most-read documents are practical and peer-created: worksheets, study guides, and spelling bees. And during exam season, engagement with assessment preparation materials spiked, with users searching for assessment preparation materials, documents, and questions, specifically related to major global universities.

Demand for DIY auto repair

Demand for car-related materials – primarily vehicle repair manuals, technical guides, sale agreements, and safety manuals – are among Scribd’s highest engagement.

Beyond views, these materials tend to drive deeper engagement than many other categories, suggesting users are often arriving with a specific problem to solve.

That tracks with broader economic realities. The average age of vehicles on U.S. roads now exceeds 12 years, and with tariffs driving up the cost of imported auto parts, more consumers are taking maintenance and basic repairs into their own hands (source). We're seeing that reflected directly in what people are searching for and accessing on Scribd.

‍Graduation season sparks inspiration

As graduation season continues, speeches and ceremony materials are seeing a seasonal lift across Scribd.

From kindergarten promotions to college commencements, users are spending more time with MC scripts, ceremony templates, slogans, and even famous speeches like Malala Yousafzai Nobel Peace Prize speech and Chadwick Boseman Howard University commencement.

It’s a reminder that many people come to Scribd not just for information, but to learn from other people who have been in their shoes before. 

Faith and devotional materials remain meaningful

Religious content maintains steady readership year-round, with seasonal spikes around observances. This spring, Christian and Islamic materials have both seen steady readership, particularly among Spanish-language audiences. Hymnals, prayer collections, devotional guides, and theological texts across traditions remain some of the most actively used documents in these categories. 

Beyond religious observance, we also see seasonal spikes driven by general global holiday documents, such as Tet in Vietnam in February, reflecting broader cultural moments.

Language learning connects a global audience

English-learning materials rank among Scribd's most globally accessed content, alongside Spanish, Arabic, and Hindi resources

The breadth of engagement reflects Scribd’s global, multilingual audience and the enduring demand for practical learning resources people can use in everyday life. Many of these materials are highly structured and difficult to find freely in one place, making them especially valuable to learners around the world.

Gardening drives growth

Rounding out the seasonal picture: a modest but notable uptick in plant biology content. Documents focused on plant structure, growing techniques, and cultivation basics are seeing a seasonal rhythm in as the amateur gardener hits the soil.

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Taken together, the data describes a platform used less for browsing and more for finishing. The documents people reach for are often not professionally published. They are, however, made by people who had the same problem and solved it: the mechanic who wrote up the repair procedure, the student who passed the exam, the teacher who ran the ceremony. Not a generated answer. The original.

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